I bought a Pentax s55 without thinking too much. This camera is easy to use. Images are in average comparable to other cameras on this segment of cost. But.... Problems: ... I did not imagine that this camera eats batteries with an extraordinary speed. Unbelievable! So you must pay attention. Buy (if you like it) at least 5 couples of rechargeable batteries if you want to make at least 300 snapshots. Good luck! Pentax in the past was better, now is loosing .... image.

As a " mature" novice I am currently trying several digicams. The Pentax has 3 POF's before software(1) eats batteries due to large LCD; (2) double flash (which is not advertised) and, "buttons are easily inadventently hit when handling. Problems: 3 above and the lack of a viewfinder turned me off. The software description was enough to dissuade me from loading it.